An experience this past weekend informs me that the Liberal Monolith is cracking in ways Howard Dean does not dare dream.

My friend's daughter got married this past weekend. My friend has long been so liberal as to be almost a caricature. In earlier years she thought that Ted Kennedy was too conservative. Raised in the church of strict Boston Liberal Orthodoxy, there was no cause too far left. Although we have always had a real fond spot for one another, she railed at my joining the Navy and going to Vietnam while she and her friends had bare-footed Peace, Justice, and Love rallies on the Boston Common, the better to achieve World Peace and end the Repressive Amerikan Hegemony of Evil. When I sent her parents my picture as a new ensign and they put it on their mantle, she demanded they take it down because I was in uniform. She wanted Richard Nixon imprisoned for life for Watergate. Or better yet, hanged. The daughter of comfortable middle class higher education, she found little good in Capitalist America. My serving twice in Vietnam and then making a career of the Naval Reserve left her bewildered and feeling a bit betrayed. My being a gun owner brought her open distain. My becoming an NRA instructor left her openly baffled, for only the weak-minded wanted anything to do with guns. Despite her clearly high intelligence and abilities, she was apparently wholly owned by the Left.

Then, this past weekend came her daughter’s wedding. It was a fine Jewish affair and all were having a great time. My friend stopped at our table and said she had to tell me something in private. She and her husband took me aside and, in a quiet corner of the dining room, she told me with both hesitation and pride that she was carrying. A gun. In Massachusetts. A Smith & Wesson .32 H&R Mag, which she said she “loves.” To my open-mouthed surprise, she related how, when her husband started traveling a lot, she wanted to feel more secure at home with her two daughters. One thing led to another and she got her LTC and then the S&W. She described how much better she felt, knowing that she could protect herself and her daughters against an attacker if she had to. She told me how much fun she’s found target shooting and being with other gals of similar mind. As I was congratulating her on her taking responsibility for her family’s safety, she begged me not to tell her mother, who, in the past, had knocked-off my NRA hat when I wore it to her house.

I will, of course, honor her request but found the entire incident instructive and reassuring. I now wonder: how many Liberals are in truth crypto-Reality Moms, continuing to publicly support DNC idiocy while quietly having taken an active role in their own safety? Perhaps we’ll know in November.